Staff Reporter.
Former Transnet CEO Brian Molefe is back on the witness stand at the state capture inquiry.
On Tuesday, he gave evidence on some of the contracts entered into during his time at Transnet.
Molefe was Transnet CEO from 2011 to 2015.
He admitted on Wednesday that, from time to time while still at Transnet, he would send his driver and protector to deposit some cash at the bank.
However, the money was from a burial society of which he was the treasurer, Molefe told the Zondo commission on Wednesday.
He was under the spotlight from evidence previously led by his former protector, named Witness 1, about incidents in which he allegedly saw Molefe carrying large sums of money.
The former driver had told the commission that Molefe, during working hours while busy at Transnet head office at the Carlton Centre, would send him to banks to deposit money.
The inference of where the money came from, according to the protector, was the Gupta residence where he alleged Molefe had gone several times only to come out with a sports bag that appeared to be loaded.
On one occasion, Witness 1 testified, Molefe had left his mobile phone in his bag while at a meeting at the Carlton Centre.
He sent the bodyguard to fetch the phone. He would discover, inside the bag, stacks of R200 notes.
Molefe denied that he had stacks of money half filling his infamous leather backpack. But he admitted to sending his driver to deposit cash at the bank.
Asked where the cash came from, Molefe said: “Sometimes when we go to a burial society, people pay cash and I take it to deposit it.”
An unconvinced commission chairperson, deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo, asked him why he would be collecting cash from the burial society, and if he was the treasurer.
“Yes,” he replied, before Zondo pushed him. “What was it called?” asked Zondo.
Molefe said it was called Maapala, seemingly after his grandmother. What happened to the burial society, Zondo wanted to know.
Livestream Video Below:
Video Courtesy of ENCA.